Which Advent or Christmas hymn goes hardest in the paint? Punches above its weight? Slaps the most? Has the most, er, rizz? However you want to say it…you know what I mean!

@joshuapsteele.bsky.social For me:

1. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
2. Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus
3. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing (this is the one that punches above its weight, in my opinion…fantastic lyrics)
4. Of the Father’s Love Begotten
5. Savior of the Nations, Come

@joshuapsteele No debate to be had. And yes, it’s a hymn.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9jb…

@joshuapsteele.bsky.social gah! Forgot Joy to the World. Put that at number 3 above. 👆

@joshuapsteele Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending. Melodically adventurous, got the Lent-Easter images in there, includes repeated “deeply wailing” and also “allelulia.”

@joshuapsteele Canticle of the Turning, full stop.

@joshuapsteele O Holy Night

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Everything else distantly behind

@ablerism Looking this up! Grew up in a tradition with limited hymnody and next to no engagement with the Christian calendar, so learning new Advent hymns has been a double joy of my second religious life.

@joshuapsteele O Come All Ye Faithful (arr. Willcocks)

@joshuapsteele ‘Down to Earth, As a Dove’ (or ‘On This Day Earth Shall Ring’, both of which use the the Personent Hodie tune).

But only if your organist has the courage and skills to really put the pedal down, if you catch my meaning.

@joshuapsteele Lo He Comes with Clouds Descending
Creator of the Stars at Night

And not properly a hymn, the Trumpet Child by Over the Rhine

@joshuapsteele Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence is freaking metal.

@joshuapsteele.bsky.social “The Canticle of the Turning”, esp. this stanza:

“From the halls of power to the fortress tower,
not a stone will be left on stone.
Let the king beware for your justice tears
every tyrant from his throne.
…”

@cjhubbs This is true. Plus I love that the title is basically “STFU!”

@joshuapsteele I would also second O Holy Night as the lyric “Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother/And in his name all oppression shall cease” is NOT messing around.

@ablerism Totally agreed. Mercifully our music director agrees, so we sing it annually.

@spgreenhalgh Me too me too, on all counts. Highest praise reserved, too, for Jesus Christ the Apple Tree — the Biblical story as one unified story, not a collection of mixed scenes and tales. I listen to it only rarely outside of Advent to preserve the specialness.

@cjhubbs So good.

@joshuapsteele I’ll throw in a vote for an Advent one - Hymn 57, to Helmsley - “Lo! He Comes With Clouds Descending”

@joshuapsteele Great ones, especially #4. Especially love the older one, that’s not syncopated (1940 Hymnal)